The invention generally relates to applications of coatings for integrated circuits or other electronics packages. The invention also relates generally to methods of using such coatings to prevent reverse engineering of integrated circuits and other electronics packages.
Conventionally, integrated circuits are designed for use in relatively benign environments such as desktop PC's, cell phones, and the like. When these integrated circuit technologies are used in more demanding environments such as avionics they may experience excessively high failure rates due to the higher operating temperature, corrosion, etc. In addition, due to the sensitive nature of the information that may be stored on these components, it may be necessary to protect these devices from reverse engineering in the event that a system containing them were to fall into unfriendly hands. Modifying integrated circuits to improve their thermal performance, corrosion resistance, and tamper resistance is typically very expensive and can be detrimental to reliability.
Therefore, what is needed is a low-cost, simple method for making commercial integrated circuits resistant to tampering and reverse engineering. Further, what is needed is a low-cost simple method whereby reverse engineering of proprietary or secretive circuits or electronics packages is rendered difficult, impossible or nearly impossible by a coating applied to the circuit or electronics package.
The techniques herein below extend to those embodiments which fall within the scope of the appended claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the above-mentioned needs.